182 DEPARTMENT OF THE NAYAL SERVICE 



8 GEORGE V, A. 1918 



The association of mussels with food poisoning is cited by Yaughan, 1892 ^ ; 

 citing from Vaughan's paper: — 



" That chemical poisons may be transmitted from the lower animals to 

 man in the food is shown by the history of poisoning with mussels and with 

 fish. As early as 1827 Combe described in detail the symptoms induced by the 

 eating of poisonous mussels, and a valuable contribution to the same subject 

 has recently been made by Schmitdmann, who has found that non-poisonous 

 mussels placed in the water of Wilhelmshaven soon became poisonous, and that 

 the poisonous mussels from the harbour soon lose their harmful properties when 

 placed in the open sea. Linder has found in the water of this bay and in the 

 mussels living in it a great variety of protozoa, amoeba, bacteria, and other low 

 forms of life, which are not found in the water of the open sea, nor in the 

 non-poisonous mussel. He has also found that if the water of the bay be 

 filtered, non-poisonous mussels placed in it do not become poisonous. He there- 

 fore concludes that poisonous mussels are those which are suffering from disease 

 due to residence in filthy water." 



In view of the close relationship to mussels of clams, a variety of shell-fish canned 

 in both New Brunswick and Maine, U.S.A., the observations of Linder cited by 

 Vaughan are of considerable interest. In the same paper Vaughan describes the case 

 of one of his own patients who showed poisoning symptoms after eating freely of 

 canned salmon. The patient under treatment recovered. Vaughan submitted the 

 remains of the salmon to various tests' and found an organism which he describes 

 as follows: — 



" The only germ which could be found, either by direct microscopic exam- 

 ination or by the preparation of plate cultures, was a micrococcus, and this 

 was present in the salmon in great numbers. This germ grew fairly well in 

 beef-tea, but the injection of five cubic centimeters of the beef-tea culture of 

 different ages failed to affect white rats, kittens or rabbits. However, this 

 micrococcus when grown for 20 days in a sterilized egg, after Hueppe's method 

 of anaerobic culture, produces a most potent proteid poison. The white of the 

 egg becomes thin, watery, markedly alkaline, and 10 drops of this suffices to 

 kill white rats. 



"Evidently in the preparation of the salmon this can was not sterilized; 

 it was sealed, and for months, possibly longer, this germ had been growing" 

 anaerobically, and elaborating a chemical poison." 



Savage, in England who has investigated many outbreaks of food poisoning, lias- 

 isolated B. ententides from tinned salmon. Griffiths, cited by Vaughan and Novy^, 

 claims to have isolated a ptomaine saordinin from sardines. 



In view of the types of bacteria I have isolated in the present investigation, it 

 is of importance to note that Poels ^ in Kotterdam has isolated varieties of B. aoli 

 from cases of food poisoning due to the eating of meat from a supposedly healthy- 

 animal. McWeeney^ considers that meat poisoning outbreaks are due to organisms- 

 of the following groups : — 



(a) The Typho coli group, including B ententides (Gaertner). 

 (5) The group of putrefactive aerobes {Proteus, etc.). 

 (c) The obligate anaerobes (B. hotulinis). 



It will be seen, pages 192, 209, that of the organisms I have isolated, some strains 

 are varieties of the Proteus group, and some varieties of the B. coli group. Vaughan 

 and Novy* describe the most common form of food poisoning that caused by con- 

 tamination of foods with saprophytic bacteria; such bacteria either before or after 

 the food has been eaten, elaborating chemical poisons. 



